The Roles of Ethics and Praxeology
Both objective values and subjective values are essential to our understanding of human action. We need to study objective values and the methods by which they can be determined and pursued in order to determine what will objectively benefit the lives of human beings. Since in humans these objective values are not programmed or automatically known, they must be discovered by a process of reason. The determination of objective values and of the principles by which we can act to gain and/or keep them is the province of the science of ethics.

An understanding of the pursuit of subjective values is crucial to an analysis of how humans actually behave and especially how they interact in society. Such analysis is necessary, for example, in order to determine whether particular social policies are (or would be) constructive or destructive (). This analysis is the province of the science of praxeology. As will be seen later, praxeological concepts are also needed in order to implement certain ethical principles in practical situations.